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Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Chapter 1: Whitechapel
Explanation and Analysis—Like Gluttons:
In Chapter 1, Whitechapel recalls the whipping of Chapel, describing the way the lash bit into Chapel's flesh with a simile:
The whip ate into him, but like all gluttons who have gorged themselves to their fill, it bit and chewed without swallowing and simply bit and chewed some more, until its mouth was so full that food seeped out its corners to make room for more.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Like A Wild Beast:
In Chapter 1, Whitechapel describes the way Chapel is returned in chains using a simile comparing Chapel to an animal:
Unlock with LitCharts A+For here before me was my son in chains, led and dragged in turn like a wild beast of the forest from which he had been plucked. My son, whose dreams were such that he argued his children would be free.
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Chapter 5: Chapel
Explanation and Analysis—Writing Hand is a Crab:
In Chapter 5, Chapel uses simile and metaphor to describe what it was like learning to write with Lydia:
Unlock with LitCharts A+My hand was a crab walking sideways / And leaving crab tracks, sideways across the page. / Then she held my hand and the tracks straightened / As if the crab walked on two feet in one line.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12: Great Granddaughter
Explanation and Analysis—Knuckles Round as Stones:
In Chapter 12, Whitechapel's great-granddaughter describes his dead body with imagery, simile, and metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He lies half-curled. His skin is already cold. I start at his head, his face, neck and behind his ears; wiping the slack skin in his neck to catch a streak of water, wiping the set creases at the corners of his mouth.[...] I uncurl the fingers which have the resistance of the dead in them and wipe the palms with their pathways of an ant’s nest. His knuckles are round as stones. His nails are as dark brown as his skin.
Related Themes:
